PITTSBURGH (AP) — After early complaints that
out-of-state firms got the most jobs, some local construction trade
workers and union members in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia say
they’re now benefiting in a big way from the Marcellus and Utica Shale
oil and gas boom.
That vocal support from blue-collar workers
complicates efforts by environmentalists to limit the drilling process
known as fracking.
"The shale became a lifesaver and a lifeline
for a lot of working families," said Dennis Martire, the mid-Atlantic
regional manager for the Laborers’ International Union, or LIUNA, which
represents workers in numerous construction trades.
Martire said
that as huge quantities of natural gas were extracted from the vast
shale reserves over the last five years, union work on large pipeline
jobs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia has increased significantly. In
2008, LIUNA members worked about 400,000 hours on such jobs; by 2012,
that had risen to 5.7 million hours.
Nationally, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics says total employment in the nation’s oil and gas
industry rose from about 120,000 in early 2004 to about 208,000 last
month. Less than 10 percent of full-time oil and gas industry workers
are represented by unions.
Alex Paris, head of a Pittsburgh-area
contracting firm founded by his grandfather in 1928, said many of the
jobs in the early years of the boom went to out-of-state workers,
perhaps because the biggest drilling firms come from Texas and Oklahoma.
Now there’s been a shift to hiring local contractors that use union
labor.
"It has created more work for our business. There’s jobs
here for the first time in many, many years. Legitimate, good-paying
jobs," Paris said of a region that was hit hard by the decline of the
steel industry in the 1980s and ’90s.
The increasing use of union
construction labor has given energy companies a powerful ally as
drilling is debated in communities nationwide. Many Republicans have
been pro-drilling, but now some unions traditionally associated with
Democrats are using their political clout to urge politicians to reject
bans on pipelines or drilling.
For example, LIUNA has urged
members of Congress to support liquefied natural gas exports and
regional gas pipeline expansions, and union members plan to participate
in a pro-drilling rally in Pennsylvania’s capital next month.
"The
unions are powerful and influential," said David Masur, director of
Penn Environment, which has been critical of the drilling boom.
The
Marcellus and Utica shale fields, rich in natural gas and oil, lie deep
underneath large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and
more than 6,000 new wells have been drilled there over the last five
years.
In the early days of the shale drilling boom, there were
complaints about the number of local jobs. In 2010, one union leader
told a Pennsylvania House Labor Relations Committee that local people
had little or no success in getting work from the industry. And even now
some powerful unions are withholding judgment. Anthony Montana, a
spokesman for the United Steelworkers, declined to comment on how much
drilling is helping that industry.
But others say the trend toward more local jobs is clear.
Mike
Engbert of the Ohio Laborers District Council said that while some
companies still use a lot of out-of-state labor, "Across the board, job
gains have really shot up."
For some, the drilling-related work is a big improvement over low-wage service jobs.
"I’ve
probably worked 15 jobs, and none of them nearly as stable as this one,
or nearly as interesting," said Amy Dague, 38, of Wheeling, W.Va. She’s
worked for a pipeline construction and maintenance company for a little
more than a year.
"It’s definitely changed the way I see my future. I see this as long-term employment," Dague
said.
Some energy companies say they’re happy with local workers, too.
Matt
Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources of Fort Worth, Texas, wrote
in an email: "We are in need of reliable, consistent, quality work at a
reasonable price and the local trades have stepped up in a significant
way."
Some environmental groups worry that what’s happening in the
region is a repeat of the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline, when
some major unions and green groups took opposite sides. Penn Environment
has called for much stronger regulations and a ban on drilling in some
areas, such as state forests.
"I understand the dynamic at play.
It feels fairly short-sighted," Masur said of how workers and unions are
embracing oil and gas drilling. "This could leave the same sort of
legacy as coal." He urged more investments — and thus jobs— in wind and
solar power.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.